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The film offered a heroization of death, with the captain explicitly stating that Germans may not know how to live, but they know how to die.[3] In a central scene, the captain of the submarine offers to his men that he and the first officer will go down with the ship in order that they may escape; they refuse on the grounds it will be all or none of them, and the captain glorifies the chance to die with such men, a theme that commonly appeared in Nazi-era films.[4]

The first officer, having learned that the woman he loves is in love with captain, not himself, and another sailor commit suicide to save the others – a common way to resolve love triangles in Nazi films, where the heroic death saves the man from failure.[5]

On the other hand, the mother of one man refuses to rejoice over her son because of the suffering of war – a theme that would not appear in Nazi film.[6]